Trumped in midterm elections, GOP looks at Ron of a new era

Washington: After years of first promoting and then kissing up to Donald Trump, Republican grandees and conservative media in the US are now ditching the former president and hitching their star (and ratings) to Florida governor Ron DeSantis, now a putative presidential candidate following a stellar gubernatorial win in Florida. Don vs Ron is being set up as America’s newest political theatre.

Political pundits and anchors on Fox News, long deferential to the Don, are overnight gushing about Ron, even as moderate Republicans are urging a pivot away from the incendiary MAGA leader. Mike Lawler, a Republican who unseated prominent Democrat Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney in New York, was among those who said it is time for the GOP to move past Trump and focus on the future.